Have you heard of Medical Detection Dogs? An incredible, pioneering charity working to train dogs to detect odours associated with cancer and other life threatening illnesses; with over 60 dogs already placed in homes and many more in training! We’re joining them behind the scenes in May for an upcoming blog, which we can’t wait to share with you, but in the meantime we were invited to blog about one of their annual fundraising events; Dogs Day Out! Join us as we tell you all about it and introduce you to some of the faces we met on the day.

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Set in the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside, a sea of tail wagging dogs, smiling people and laughter filled the air, so we quickly made sure we joined in all the fun! There were many activities available, as you can see from the map above, but one which we particularly enjoyed watching was the Fun Dog Scurry, where excitable hounds were keen to leap over straw bales, collect one of the dog training dummies and return in the fastest time possible! It was mesmerising watching these beautiful dogs in action as they vaulted with ease over the straw bales and as you can see, some were very keen to get in and have a go!

Carving our way through the bustling crowds, there were so many adorable faces to look at, with just some of them shown below:

More dogs were to be found in the two arenas where many were competing in the various classes as part of the fun dog shows! Ring One was all about gorgeous pedigrees pooches, with classes such as Sporting, Non-Sporting and Veteran.

In Ring Two it was all about the fun novelty classes including Waggiest Tail, Dog Most Like Its Owner and Best Trick. As you can see, some of the winners were really pleased to win, having been handpicked by none other than Medical Detection Dogs Puppy Training Manager, Kimberly Cox.

Here are some of our favourite winners of the day including Casey, a 12 year old deaf boxer and his owner Daniel, who showed off their amazing bond and skills by communicating with sign language in the Best Trick category….

As the event is in aidMedical Detection Dogs, we were extremely lucky to meet some future stars and hear some of their stories. Not only are they stunning and so well behaved having undertaken meticulous training, these dogs are currently being put through their paces to sniff out odours, which truly can mean the difference between life and death for so many people across the UK. Medical Detection Dog Mars (pictured below) was a particular favourite. He was named by children from a local school in Buckinghamshire and as part of his training, even attends weekly bingo sessions with his foster mum!

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From talking to several volunteers who currently foster these young pups during their training, it can be hard to say goodbye when the dogs go to their permanent home, but knowing what these dogs are going to do is so satisfying and makes it all worthwhile, so much so that many become regular fosterers! As soon as one dog has finished his or her training, another is waiting in the wings to start. Fantastic. Medical Detection Dogs are always on the look out for more fosterers and puppy socialisers though, so if you’re interested, please visit their website HERE.

The day was a great success raising 6,500 for Medical Detection Dogs. Incredible! It is fundraising like this which helps with the cost of training these gifted dogs, as well as funding research into the latest techniques to track even more conditions, such as one of the new studies they’re conducting into prostate cancer. You can find out about all their work via their website HERE or their Facebook or Twitter pages. Congratulations to everyone involved in setting up this great day out and well done to all those who took part. Thank you for inviting us!! We loved it and can’t wait to share more about Medical Detection Dogs in May, so watch this space!! In the meantime, enjoy the short video below of some of our highlights from Dogs Day Out 2016!

 

 

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